When you think of legendary boxers, you think of Ali, Tyson, Lewis and also Balboa, it’s like that. Even though Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa was a movie character, with a statue in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, he’s also a star of the ring. And it turns out that Stallone’s training for the character was like that of a real boxer, both in diet and training.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Stallone told in detail how he prepared for ‘Rocky III’, when his character faced Clubber Lang, played by Mister T, MA Barracus in ‘The A-Team’.
“My whole breakfast was two oatmeal cookies made with brown rice and 10 cups of coffee because I wanted to keep my body fat down to around 2.8 percent,” Stallone explains. “And I was eating only tuna, so there were times when I felt extremely weak.”
Throughout his 50-year career, Sylvester Stallone has pushed his body to the extreme on many occasions, explaining that he has had “five operations on his back, two on his shoulders, three on his neck, and both knees.” “I’m almost a bionic human,” he jokes.
Sylvester Stallone: ”Now I only work with pulleys and resistance bands”
In order to protect his body, the 76-year-old actor has switched “from lifting weights to doing it with resistance bands and pulleys.” He explains it this way: “It’s like physiotherapy. Using different movements and always taking care of the joints.”
